


Long neglect will wear away

by KaylenaKey



Category: 9-1-1: Lone Star (TV 2020)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Child Neglect, Dialogue Heavy, Future Fic, I'm Sorry, M/M, Owen and Gwen are horrible parents in this, a lot of crying, baby Strand - Freeform, no happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-27
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-19 02:14:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29743428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KaylenaKey/pseuds/KaylenaKey
Summary: 5 times T.K. and Carlos have to take care of Owen's and Gwen's baby and 1 time where they don't (but feel like the baby is here).
Relationships: Carlos Reyes/TK Strand
Comments: 13
Kudos: 146





	Long neglect will wear away

**Author's Note:**

> I am NOT proud of this one, it's like mostly dialogue, I apologize!
> 
> Also, little warning: Owen and Gwen are HORRIBLE parents in this, and I SWEAR that's not how I picture them as parents (they didn't abandon T.K. completely, I know that) but I exaggerated A LOT just for the Tarlos feels lmao.
> 
> I still hope you'll enjoy it :) and as always, that my english is okay.

T.K. didn't care if he had to look after his baby brother sometimes. He really loved R.J. (he will forever refuse to call him by his full name!) and it felt good to take responsibility over a kid, it prepared him for when he decided to adopt a child one day.

T.K. _understood_ that his parents needed some time for themselves sometimes, with his dad being the Captain of the 126 and his mom working on opening a new law firm in Austin.

However, what he did _not_ understand, was how they could leave R.J. with him for hours on end when they _knew_ that there were things that he just couldn't give the baby if needed.

The times his parents went out became an unbearable amount, and T.K. knew from the beginning that it would happen, but it didn't make anything easier for him.

**1**

When T.K. texted him that it was a 'baby emergency', Carlos wasted no time to drive to the Strand's house. The baby was about 3 months old now, and Carlos had never seen his boyfriend as stressed out as in that time. So, whenever he got a message like this, he would drop everything he was doing and get there as fast as possible, knowing T.K. was about to lose his mind.

Outside the house, he could already hear R.J. crying, so he jogged up the porch and rung the doorbell.

"I'm so glad you're here!", T.K. breathed as soon as he opened the door.

Damn, he looked _done_ , Carlos thought as he entered the house.

"He's been crying for _2 hours_ already! Mom just went _god knows where_ , I can't reach her and he's _starving_ and I can't calm him down!", T.K. pronounced.

They called around the team and T.K. even tried calling some of his mother's new employees that he had the number of. Nobody had seen either Gwen or Owen. It was as if they had disappeared off the face of the earth.

They had no choice but to take matters into their own hands.

Together, they took turns trying to get R.J. to stop crying, to no avail. The boy was hungry, and he needed his mother's milk.

His mother, who wasn't replying to any texts or calls!

At the end, after another two hours of unsuccessful trying (they were sure R.J. was about to have a hell of vocal cords later in life), they decided to buy formula milk.

With three months, you are not really supposed to feed your baby with formula yet if you were breastfeeding it before, at least not so all of a sudden, but they knew that R.J. would not stop crying anytime soon. They had to do something.

So Carlos drove to the nearest market to get some formula.

It's not easy to feed a baby with it if it wasn't used to it, but R.J. drank it anyways. A sign on how hungry he had really been. T.K. couldn't believe it; he was bewildered.

When his parents came home two hours later, T.K. was fuming. His baby brother was in his room sleeping, but T.K. couldn't stop himself from yelling at them.

"Your baby cried for 5 hours because he was hungry! We needed to get formula for him to stop crying! And you were nowhere to be found. I never signed up for this! So don't leave me to deal with him while you are elsewhere doing god knows what!"

His parents just looked at him perplexed, as if they had no idea why he was so mad.

T.K. had to realize that it was all he would get from them tonight, and with a quick mumble of "I'm sleeping at Carlos's" he left.

**2**

Carlos and T.K. were stumbling into Carlos' condo, hands on each other's body and mouth's covered by the other's. Carlos kicked the door behind him shut and worked on unbuttoning T.K.'s shirt.

"We need to be at the restaurant in an hour, so we got 30 minutes for this!", T.K. panted as they came up for air.

Carlos re-connected their lips as he picked T.K. up and pushed him against the wall next to the door. His tongue slid into his boyfriends mouth while T.K. battled with his shirt.

When T.K. started kissing him down his neck and sucking on his shoulder, Carlos wanted to take him upstairs to their bedroom to continue.

However, he never came that far when someone knocked on the other side of the door.

Both men groaned as Carlos put T.K. down to open the door.

Gwyneth walked into the condo as soon as the door was opened for her, _like she owned the place_ , and started talking before either man had the chance to do so.

"T.K., you're taking him today, I need to go to work."

She pushed the baby into T.K.'s arms, who had no choice but to hold him, and continued into the room to set everything down that R.J. would need later.

T.K. protested: "What, mom, no! We made reservations, I can't take him!"

She couldn't possibly be serious about this!

"Well, my employees need me, so you have no choice. I'm sure you can rearrange those reservations."

With that, she dropped the last of the baby's things mindlessly and left.

"I can't believe this", was all T.K. managed to say.

**3**

Once again, T.K. was at Carlos' place with R.J. in his arms.

To say he was overwhelmed would be the understatement of the year! He was _exhausted_ , R.J. crying all night, every night, left him without much sleep.

Now, T.K. was crying too, and it looked like the both of them were battling on who could cry harder.

"Please stop crying! I really can't take this right now, R.J., just stop!", T.K. sobbed. He didn't know what to do. R.J. wouldn't stop crying once again, and he was too tired for this today. His head hurt and his eyes felt heavy, and all he wanted was some quietness!

But that was too much to ask for today.

Carlos had texted Grace to pick R.J. up. Usually they didn't like to call for help, but in this case, he had to.

He can't remember ever seeing T.K. this helpless.

Carlos sat down on the couch next to the both of them and said with a soothing voice: "Tiger, just give him to me and calm down."

"NO! He needs to stop crying! Why doesn't he stop?"

T.K. just didn't understand it. His brother had everything he needed. He just got fed by his mother earlier, his diaper was fresh, he wasn't tired either and neither too cold nor too warm. He also didn't want to play with his rattle or have his pacifier. So what the hell did he need?

"Because you're stressing him out by crying yourself. Just give him to me and lay down. You don't look good."

T.K. scoffed at that. "Yeah, no shit! I've had him all night, had barely 2 hours of sleep, then I had to take him almost the whole day too, dad should've picked him up 4 hours ago and still, he's here with me! I have therapy in half an hour and I'm probably not gonna make it! This is the third time I'm gonna miss it this month!"

He had to admit, it felt good having all that out of his system. Still, the joy of that was short-lived, knowing that R.J. was still full-on crying.

However, while T.K. had been concentrated on ranting about his problems, Carlos had managed to take the baby away from him to hold in his own arms.

A few moments later, Grace knocked on the door and Carlos let out a sigh of relief.

"Grace, thank God!", he said as he opened the door with a barely calmed down R.J. in his arms.

Grace saw T.K. still crying on the couch.

"Oh, that bad, huh?"

She knew how hard T.K. has had it since R.J. was born. If Judd wouldn't tell her, Carlos would. It never made her second-guess about having a baby of her own one day, but it made her realize how much effort she would have to put into it.

Still, she always happily took R.J. for a few hours if it meant that T.K. would get some much-needed rest.

Carlos lowered his voice a bit as he answered: "Yeah. He's really losing it right now. How long can you take him?"

"As long as you need me to."

"Well, Owen should've picked him up 4 hours ago, technically, so I really don't know when to expect him to get him."

"It's okay, don't worry about it. I'll text him that he's with me. You two get some rest, you look like you could need it."

"Thanks Grace. We really appreciate it."

With that, Grace left with the baby. Carlos put an exhausted T.K. to bed who fell asleep within a minute.

He went back downstairs to call T.K.'s therapist and let her know that he wouldn't make it today.

  
**4**

"He's gonna turn out like me, isn't he?", T.K. asked one day in a depressing voice as he held R.J. in his arms, feeding him with a bottle.

Carlos was confused. "What do you mean by that?"

"Probably will be coming home drunk for the first time when he's twelve, and find drugs when he's fourteen. Get depressed when he turns fifteen... just like I did."

"He won't."

"How do you know that? You know, I did all those things to be _seen_ for once by them, and so far they haven't been giving him much attention either. How do you know he won't end as a fuck-up as I was?", T.K. retorted furiously, looking straight into his eyes.

Somehow, Carlos was the one who felt offended when his boyfriend started insulting himself.

"First of all, you weren't a fuck-up! I may have not known you back then, but I know that that's not true! And yeah, maybe you're parents won't give him much attention either. But the difference is, he will have an awesome brother and a big extended family that will always make sure that he's okay. Don't worry. We will all have his back, at all times. You can ask your whole team. I promise you."

That brought a smile onto T.K.'s lips and Carlos knew that he had said the right thing.

"Thank you. I love you so much Carlos."

  
**5**

R.J. was a year old now and still spent most of his time with his big brother and the man's boyfriend.

Carlos could positively say that was the most stressful year his boyfriend had ever had. The younger man looked exhausted, everyday. So he did today.

T.K. had R.J. on his lap as he fed him some puree. R.J. was happily licking at the spoon as T.K. stared at the bowl with bored and tired eyes. He just waited for his father to come and pick R.J. up so he could finally catch up on some sleep he's been missing for a year.

Carlos stood in the kitchen, preparing their own dinner while stealing some worried glances at his boyfriend.

It wasn't that T.K. didn't like being with babies, Carlos knew that. That hadn't been the reason he was always in a bad mood when he had to take his brother. It was the fact that he had to take care of him almost all the time, that he was the one getting up at night to stop R.J. from crying. That he still had to get up the next morning to go to his job, which was physically demanding and tiring itself. You couldn't be fit for the firefighter job if you didn't have a good nights' sleep in months!

Then, there was the fact that they had no time left as a couple. It even started bothering Carlos at this point. They still didn't make it to that restaurant they had made reservations so long ago.

He was pulled out of his thoughts when R.J. suddenly said, in a very unsure voice: "Ma-ma", while looking up at his brother.

T.K. dropped the spoon and stared at R.J., then he looked up at Carlos.

"Was that just-", Carlos started, and T.K. nodded.

They both smiled down at R.J. and T.K. confirmed: "That was his first word."

Later that night, both Owen and Gwen showed up to take him home. T.K. handed them all of R.J.'s things before he mentioned, in a casual voice: "Oh, by the way: he said his first word today. Thought you might wanted to know that!"

The sappiness and bitterness was still clear in his voice, as much as he tried to hide it, and before his parents could respond anything, he closed the door, leaning his head against it a second later.

  
**+1**

After months, Carlos and T.K. finally found the time for a date night again and for once, they didn't have to look after the baby.

They decided a homemade dinner and then a movie would be the best choice.

If T.K. was silently praying that his parents wouldn't knock on the door anytime that night, he didn't let his boyfriend know.

After they cleaned up the kitchen, they settled on the couch and put on some fantasy movie. T.K. cuddled into Carlos' chest and tried desperately to stay awake, despite his body's clear demands to close his eyes. He didn't want to destroy yet another date night.

But, he failed. He was out like a light within the first 20 minutes.

Carlos didn't mind in the slightest, he just put a blanket over his boyfriend's body and finished the movie.

Afterwards, he carefully carried T.K. into bed.

The following morning, T.K. awoke from a crying noise. He sat up hastily and looked around the room.

"Hey, relax. You're okay", came the calming voice of Carlos a moment later and T.K. looked around to meet his gaze.

"Is R.J. here?", he asked, still confused.

"What? No."

"I thought I just- never mind."

T.K. shrugged it off as he rubbed at his eyes. Carlos was still curious, though, so he pressed on.

"No, what is it?"

"I thought I heard him cry. But I must've dreamt it."

"Relax, Tiger. You're okay. R.J. is with your parents."

It took another minute for T.K. to realize where he was. He groaned.

"Oh god, I fell asleep during the movie, didn't I?"

Of course he knew the answer, the question was rhetorical.

"It's okay", Carlos said calmly, not at all bothered by it.

"No, it's not. This was the first time we had the chance for a proper date night in over a month, and I ruin it by falling asleep!"

"You didn't ruin anything. I don't care if you're watching the movie or sleeping. I just enjoy being with you. And I know how tired you've been lately. Don't feel bad about it!"

T.K. let himself fall back down onto his pillow, sighing. He never had thought he would be at this point of his life.

**Author's Note:**

> All my baby fics end badly, even the next one (I'm writing rn). It's so clear how unhappy I am about it lmao 😭
> 
> Anyways, anyone curious what R.J. stands for? You'll have to guess 😉😜


End file.
